From the balcony of the Weddell House, the president-elect assured his audience of 10,000 that the secession furor “is altogether an artificial crisis. In all parts of the nation there are differences of opinion and politics. There are differences of opinion even here. You did not all vote for the person who now addresses you. What is happening now will not hurt those who are farther away from here. Have they not all their rights now as they ever have had? Do they not have their fugitive slaves returned now as ever? Have they not the same constitution that they have lived under for seventy odd years? Have they not a position as citizens of this common country, and have we any power to change that position? (Cries of ‘No.’) What then is the matter with them? Why all this excitement? Why all these complaints? As I said before, this crisis is all artificial. It has no foundation in facts. It was not argued up, as the saying is, and cannot, therefore, be argued down. Let it alone and it will go down of itself (Laughter).” He apologized for cutting short his remarks, pleading a sore throat as justification.82
At a reception that evening, Congressman Albert Gallatin Riddle noted that while Lincoln seemed totally unselfconscious around males, “he was constrained and ill at ease, surrounded, as he several times was, by well-dressed ladies.”83 He gave his weary arms and hands a rest by having the guests simply file past him at a safe distance. That tactic was soon abandoned, however. Nicolay remembered that the “experiment was tried two or three times but always with unsatisfactory results. To the curious individuals who were passing it seemed a performance and created an impression, ranging from the feeling on the one hand that they were assisting at an animal show, to that on the other, that they were engaged in a grotesque ceremony of mock adulation.” In Lincoln “it produced a consciousness not only of being on exhibition, but as if he were separated by an abyss from those with whom as fellow-citizens and constituents it was more than ever an imperative duty to be brought into closer relations and sympathy.” Thus “the crowd could only pass by him, either with a meaningless smirk or an open-mouthed stare; no talk either of earnestness or pleasantry was possible. This was infinitely worse than the utmost fatigue, and Mr. Lincoln returned to the old custom where a cordial grasp of the hand and a fitting word formed an instantaneous circuit of personal communion.”84 His awkward appearance when bowing amused one observer, who said it could not “be caricatured. … His chin rises—his body breaks in two at the hips—there is a bend of the knees at a queer angle.”85
A local Democratic paper called Lincoln “a clever man” and “a well disposed gentleman,” but thought him “not equal to the present emergency.” It feared that his “triumphal procession to the Capital will prove a funeral procession to his reputation.” He had won praise for his campaign against Douglas two years earlier, but the Lincoln of 1861 failed to live up to the promise of 1858: “The Douglas Lincoln was certainly a better speaker than President Lincoln and a much smarter man in every respect.”86
Calamitous Reception in Buffalo
Leaving Cleveland on the morning of February 16, the presidential cavalcade hugged the shore of Lake Erie en route to Buffalo. Lincoln, still fatigued from the exertion of the previous day, was subdued. Because of hoarseness, he spoke less than he had earlier on the trip. At Girard, to everyone’s surprise, Horace Greeley boarded, mistakenly thinking it was the regular train. Nicolay marched him into the presidential car, where he greeted the Lincolns. Embarrassed by his blunder, the eccentric editor detrained at the next station, Erie. There, at a lunch break, the city magistrates urged Lincoln to try some of their wine. “I have lived fifty years without the use of any liquors, and I do not wish to change my habits now,” he replied.87 A resident of Erie thought the president-elect “has been materially improved, in appearance, by the growth of whiskers, and though somewhat hoarse, and suffering slightly from fatigue, seemed to be in good health and spirits.”88 He “excused himself from speaking at any length.” A local journalist detected in the president-elect’s eyes “a blending of gravity and goodness” which “wins confidence and affection, and satisfies one of his fitness for the great office.” His smile conveyed “much evident sincerity” and his bow “real courtesy.”89
At Westfield, New York, Lincoln asked if there were a little girl in the audience who had written him in October suggesting that he grow a beard. (Earlier, his friend Gurdon Hubbard had told Lincoln that such a change would lend him dignity.) Eleven-year-old Grace Bedell had resented schoolmates’ hostile comments about the candidate’s appearance. Responding to those slurs and to the unflattering poster image of Lincoln that her father had brought home, she wrote the candidate: “I have got 4 brother’s and part of them will vote for you any way and if you will let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you[.] [Y]ou would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husband’s to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is a going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try and get every one to vote for you that I can.”
Lincoln, who was glad to receive letters having nothing to do with politics or patronage, asked in reply: “As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affection if I were to begin it now?”90 But he took her advice anyway, and by February it was reported that “a vigorous growth of comely whiskers has entirely changed his facial appearance. The improvement is remarkable. The gaunt, hollow cheeks, and long, lank jawbone are so enveloped as to give fullness and rotundity to the entire face.”91 A young woman in Springfield concurred, writing that the “whiskers are a great improvement.” (Years later a dissenting artist contended that “no man who ever understood the singular form & character of Lincoln’s chin & lower jaws would dream of covering them.”)92
In response to his query at Westfield, a young boy shouted: “there she is, Mr. Lincum,” pointing out Grace Bedell, a comely, black-eyed, blushing girl. Her elderly father led her to the train, where Lincoln gave her a kiss and said: “You see, I let these whiskers grow for you, Grace.”93 His gesture confused the youngster, who thought only of returning home to her mother.
At Dunkirk, Lincoln electrified the crowd of 12,000 with a brief, stirring declaration. On a platform adorned with a flagstaff, he concluded his remarks simply: “Standing as I do, with my hand upon this staff, and under the folds of the American flag, I ask you to stand by me so long as I stand by it.”94 John Hay found it “impossible to describe the applause and the acclamation with which this Jacksonian peroration was greeted. The arches of the depot echoed and re-echoed with the ring of countless cheers. Men swung their hats wildly, women waved their handkerchiefs, and, as the train moved on, the crowd, animated by a common impulse, followed, as if they intended to keep it company to the next station. Inside the cars the enthusiasm created by the conclusion of the speech was scarcely less than the outside assemblage had exhibited. The company evinced a general disposition to intone hurrahs and sing patriotic songs out of tune.”95
On the afternoon of February 16, the presidential party encountered chaos at Buffalo, where 75,000 people welcomed it. As the train pulled into the station, the wildly cheering crowd tried to compress itself to catch a glimpse of the president-elect. A company of soldiers, with heroic effort, cleared a path for Lincoln, who was greeted briefly by ex-President Millard Fillmore. No sooner had the former and future presidents made their way to a carriage than the frenzied crowd surged toward them, sweeping aside soldiers protecting the honored visitor. In the crush, some men fainted and others were badly injured, including an elderly gentleman whose ribs were broken, and Major David Hunter, who suffered a dislocated collarbone. Only with aggressive, persistent elbowing were Nicolay and the rest of the entourage able to reach their coaches. The president-elect, Hay reported, “narrowly escaped unpleasant personal contact with the crowd. An intrepid body-guard, composed partly of soldiers and partly of members of his suite, succeeded, however, in
protecting him from maceration, but only at the expense of incurring themselves a pressure to which the hug of Barnum’s grizzly bear would have been a tender and fraternal embrace.”96 Not surprisingly, Lincoln’s companions insisted that he refuse to subject himself to such dangerous receptions unless he was assured that he would receive better protection.
Things were not much better at the hotel, where, Nicolay complained, “all was confusion—the committee not only did nothing but didn’t know and didn’t seem to care what to do. We took the matter into our own hands and finally arranged pretty much everything.”97 The mayor welcomed Lincoln with a little speech, to which he responded with sentiments he had expressed many times earlier. Understandably, his voice was starting to show signs of wear; during some passages he could scarcely be heard. With customary modesty, Lincoln insisted that “I am unwilling, on any occasion, that I should be so meanly thought of, as to have it supposed for a moment that I regard these demonstrations as tendered to me personally. They should be tendered to no individual man. They are tendered to the country, to the institutions of the country, and to the perpetuity of the [liberties of the] country for which these institutions were made and created.” Employing a firmer tone than he had used earlier, he urged the crowd to “[s]tand up to your sober convictions of right, to your obligations to the Constitution, act in accordance with those sober convictions, and the clouds which now arise on the horizon will be dispelled, and we shall have a bright and glorious future; and when this generation has passed away, tens of thousands will inhabit this country where only thousands inhabit [it] now.”98 In Washington this speech was regarded as the best he had given so far on his journey.
Reaction to the Speeches
Lincoln’s earlier addresses had disappointed many in the nation’s capital. Benjamin Brown French, who would serve as chief marshal at Lincoln’s inaugural, told his brother that “[w]e all like … old Abe but wish he would leave off making little speeches. He has not the gift of language, though he may have of western gab.”99 The Washington correspondent of the Democratic Cincinnati Enquirer reported that “Lincoln’s harangues are received very unfavorably,” and Republicans “are restive under the charge of having elected an ignoramus for a president.” They “now see their leader’s weakness, and are striving to cover it up by all the means in their power.”100 Another Washington correspondent of a Democratic paper alleged that the “mortification of the republicans at Mr. Lincoln’s recent speeches increases with every fresh emanation from the presidential tripod.”101 Yet another averred that Lincoln “has fallen immensely in the estimation of even his own party,” for his speeches “are regarded as failures.”102
Even some Republicans condemned “his declarations as unnecessarily irritating and impolitic.”103 One disenchanted Republican was Charles Francis Adams, who told a friend that Lincoln’s “speeches have fallen like a wet blanket here. They put to flight all notions of greatness. But he may yet prove true and honest and energetic, which will cover a multitude of minor deficiencies.”104 In his diary, Adams lamented that “in this lottery we may have drawn a blank,” for the speeches “betray a person unconscious of his own position as well as of the nature of the contest around him. Good natured, kindly, honest, but frivolous and uncertain. … I confess I am gloomy about him. His beginning is inauspicious. It indicates the absence of the heroic qualities which he most needs.” On February 19, Adams told his family that “ten days before, the whole game was in Seward’s hands; but now it was surrendered again to the chapter of accidents. The difficulty was wholly owing to Lincoln’s folly in not consulting with his official advisers, but saying whatever came into his head. Thus he was dividing his party deplorably—destroying the chance of union in action. Seward’s position had thus been made lamentable; for, with his strength exhausted, he was surrounded by opponents, friends and foes; and here now was Lincoln, without consultation or understanding with Seward, and with no apparent regard for the policy indicated by him, showing an ignorance as complete as lamentable of the position of public affairs, fomenting dissensions and jealousies already too formidable.” Presciently, Adams speculated that war would break out within two months.105
Another Republican congressman, Samuel R. Curtis of Iowa, deplored Lincoln’s journey as “unfortunately prolonged” and “foolishly performed.” Curtis especially regretted that the president-elect “made light of grave questions.”106 He did, however, praise the Indianapolis speech as “judicious,” even though he would have preferred that Lincoln wait till March 4 before making any policy pronouncements.107 An Indiana Democrat, Representative William S. Holman, thought that the president-elect’s “speeches, & even willingness to receive the triumphal receptions along the line of his journey in the present perils of his country, argues forcably against his possessing the qualities necessary for the crisis.”108
The unsuccessful vice-presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union Party, Edward Everett, judged that Lincoln’s speeches “have been of the most ordinary kind, destitute of every thing not merely of felicity & grace, but of common pertinence. He is evidently a person of very inferior cast of character, wholly unequal to the crisis.”109 A wag quipped that Lincoln’s best speech “was that in which he said he had ‘nothing to say.’ ”110 The editor of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican called Lincoln a “simple Susan” and speculated that “the men who fought a week at Chicago to nominate him have probably got their labor for their pains.”111 John Bigelow wryly observed that the president-elect’s “forensic performances have not raised the standard of American oratory materially” and that he “does not yet begin to apprehend the difficulties of his position.”112 Lincoln’s undignified manner offended a Rhode Island Republican, who complained that it was “with unfeigned mortification I have read his jokes & the accounts of his kissing young women. Imagine Washington on a journey to the Federal Capital, joking, kissing women. When the Queen of England on her throne, in dignified terms expresses her solicitude for our welfare at this critical and anomalous period, Mr. Lincoln sees no danger & is reported to have said ‘No one is hurt,’ and jokes, & kisses the women.”113
The Philadelphia Public Ledger deplored Lincoln’s “flippancy,” while the Argus of that city remarked that he “dispatches the most serious subjects with a joke, and asserts, with a smile, that the present crisis is purely ‘artificial.’ The tariff and other kindred subjects, which should be familiar to every one aspiring to statesmanship, he acknowledges he does not understand. No definite plan of action seems to have been matured for his administration, but everything is to be left to chance. The humiliating spectacle is thus presented of the President elect of this great confederacy indulging in the merest clap-trap of the politician, thanking the people for voting for him, flattering their local pride, and appealing to their sectional animosities.” The Washington correspondent of the New York Express noted that the “tone of levity and frivolity, which characterizes the speeches of Mr. Lincoln, causes the hearts of our citizens to sink within them. They perceive already that he is not the man for the crisis.”114
Even some admirers of Lincoln’s speeches believed he should not have delivered them. The president-elect, wrote George Templeton Strong, “has said some things that are sound and creditable,” but “I should have been better pleased with him had he held his tongue altogether.”115 The New York World protested that even though Lincoln’s speeches had been “wise,” the journey “after the manner of princes and conquerors, is in bad taste,” as well as “useless,” “undignified,” and “foolish.” He should have remained silent until March 4.116
Some regretted that Lincoln’s itinerary did not include the Upper South, for it was believed that a personal appearance there could relieve anxieties about his policies. But in fact, many residents of the Border States were taken aback by Lincoln’s seeming belligerence and unfounded optimism. In Baltimore, criticism of Lincoln’s journey was common. Newspapers there decried the “mortifying spectacle” he
was making of himself with speeches that were “contradictory and frivolous in substance and delivered in a style that is painfully wanting in the dignity that should belong to the President elect when discussing topics upon which the existence of the Republic depends.”117 The Sun scornfully observed that there “is that about his speechification which, if it were not for the gravity of the occasion would be ludicrous to the destruction of buttons. Indeed, we heard his Columbus speech read yesterday amidst irresistible bursts of laughter.”118 Baltimore’s literary lion, John Pendleton Kennedy, exclaimed: “Those speeches of his by the way side!—what awful promises of a President!”119 In western Virginia, a leading Unionist lamented that “Mr. Lincoln, by his speeches in the North, has done us vast harm. If he will not be guided by Mr. Seward but puts himself in the hands of Chase and the ultra republicans, nothing can save the cause of the Union in the South.”120 A Kentuckian scorned the president-elect’s “puerile and narrow minded, heartless speeches” and the “debased populace, who are cheering him on in his Union-dooming policy.”121 Melodramatically, the Louisville Democrat complained that as “the nation is writhing and groaning in its terrible agony, Mr. Lincoln smiles and jests. While in the very depths of its tribulation and despair, it stretches out its bleeding arms to him for words of hope and assurance, he offers them his cant and his slang, and perpetrates his shallow and disgusting witticisms.”122
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2 Page 4
